I Not a few friends have scolded me for wasting time on Cham poetry is there even a trifling scarcity of readers? Will there be anyone to remember? yet I want to squander my entire life on it though there may only be around a quarter dozen people though there may only be one person or even if there’s not a single living soul.

II One line of proverb – one verse of folk song half a child’s lullaby – one page of ancient poetry I search and gather like a child seeking a tiny pebble (pebbles that adults carelessly step past) to build a castle for only myself to live in a castle one day they’ll use for shelter from the rain – it’s certain!

III Flowers give off the ambrosial scent of perfume no one smells – flowers throw their fragrance to the wind birds lift their voices in song no one hears – music flies scattered through space my soul unfolds wide open but you won’t accept it – my love wilts to ash.

IV Tagalau flowers bloom purple on the knolls of childhood the jungle has gone missing bald and desolate hillocks perhaps only for me in this solitary afternoon the bare withered branches – still trying to bud.

V Like the backward look of a son going to war after building a snug roof for his aging mother like the backward look of a devout ascetic after building a temple for true believers. an itinerant field worker hit the road with a glance back at the fields of rice blooming tender ears.

VI What did ocean say to shore, as shore gave ocean eternal embrace? thank you generous shore for spreading wide open arms what did bee say to flower, as flower gave bee its pistil? thank you flower for opening your soul to share what did tree say to earth, as tree gave earth shade? thank you earth for teaching me a lesson on acceptance and we what do we say to each other, as we give each other hands, lips, glances? what will I say to you? what will you say to me?

VII A grove of young trees urgently sprouting on the green expanse but their roots have not yet reached deep in the earth only one gust of wind is enough to make them shiver in hysterics.

IX Her complexion somewhat pale – she denied she was Cham a few months overseas – he didn’t admit to being Vietnamese out of self-respect – Karl Jaspers didn’t consider himself German Henry Miller rejected America – because he hated war there is a vast gulf between denial and rejection.

X A flashing glimpse of father half a smile of mother and your two faraway onerous hands among the vastness of our native sunshine asking me where else can one find heaven?

The collection, The Purification Festival in April / lễ tẩy trần tháng tư, where "Allegory of the Land" comes from, represents a broad range of Inrasara's poetic oeuvre to date, tracing his diverse journeys through storytelling, forays into a varying array of narrative modes and transitions through lyric and narrative verse. Like all great storytellers, Inrasara pulls from a wide network of experience, weaving together the past and the present into a tapestry of the personal and collective, blending the real and the mythical. Wandering across history, literature, folklore, music, philosophy, Hinduism, Buddhism, pop culture, myth, war, peace, harvest, community, tradition, dream, language, ritual, epic and the everyday, Inrasara’s poems sing not only the song of the Cham people in modern Vietnam, but also of all human experience – of our imagining of self and of the myriad innermost emotional lives of globalization and modernity. Deeply rooted in his readings of the Cham epics, Inrasara’s verse somehow also resonates with the flowing lines of Whitman and Hughes, a montage of human experience and insight, capturing essences both singular and universal. (Pictured: Inrasara)

Alec Schachner is an independent literary scholar and poetry translator based out of HCMC, Vietnam. His translations have appeared in Asymptote, various issues of Ajar online & print journals and Jerome Rothenberg's blog Poems and Poetics. The Purification Festival in April / lễ tẩy trần tháng tư was Schachner's first full book of contemporary Vietnamese poetry translations, with two more slated for publication next year. He is oft to be caught reading original and translated works around Hanoi and New York. He is also a multi-instrumental cross-genre musician and sound installation artist.